Into the Tall, Tall Grass

by Loriel Ryon

  “It’s gone, Ghita,” Yolanda said softly.

  Ghita crossed her arms and refused to look at Yolanda, but she continued to follow the group. Even though it was hard to remember a time when they were ever best friends, Yolanda’s heart ached a bit when she thought of their friendship that was … gone.

  They’d met in Mrs. Sager’s fourth-grade class, over a papier-mâché volcano. Ghita had been moved up from third grade, as third grade hadn’t been challenging enough for her. The girls were paired together to paint the volcano before the big eruption.

  Yolanda had been working from a realistic photograph of a volcano in Costa Rica covered in a lush green rainforest.

  Ghita, as usual, had a different idea entirely.

  “Let’s paint it this hot-orange color.” Ghita dipped her brush in a bright orange paint. “Like hot lava.”

  Yolanda’s eyes widened as she dipped her brush into the soft green paint. “I think this green will look more realistic.” She did not like the idea of ruining a perfectly good volcano with bright orange paint.

  “Why do the butterflies follow your grandmother?” Ghita had asked, her tongue poking from the corner of her mouth.

  Yolanda swallowed hard and scooted the science book over to Ghita. “We should do brown and green—like this one.” Yolanda tapped the picture with the end of her paintbrush.

  Ghita glanced at the picture, shrugged, and then proceeded to drop a glob of hot-orange paint on the side of the volcano.

  “What are you doing?” Yolanda asked, her eyes wide.

  “I think orange is better. It looks like the volcano is on fire. It’ll be cool for the eruption.”

  “But it doesn’t look anything like the picture.”

  “I think it’ll look cool when Mrs. Sager lights it up.”

  Yolanda dipped her brush in the green paint again and swirled it around the base. “I think green is better,” she muttered.

  “You didn’t answer me,” Ghita said. “Why do the butterflies follow your grandmother?”

  Yolanda swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ghita glanced up from the volcano, her brush in midair. “Every time she says goodbye to you at the bus stop, they are there, in her hair, the black-and-orange ones.” She said it so matter-of-factly, like it wasn’t strange at all, but just something she noticed.

  Yolanda thought quickly. “Oh yeah, those. She and Welo—my grandfather—they study those.”

  “But they don’t follow him.”

  “It’s nothing, really. They just have them around.”

  “I don’t believe you. I think there is something else going on. I’ve heard what they say. Bruja? What does that mean?” Ghita waved her paintbrush, splattering orange paint all over the table.

  Yolanda’s mouth went dry at that word. “Nothing. It’s a mean word people say about us.” Yolanda dipped her brush in the green paint. She needed to change the subject. “What’s your grandmother like?”

  Ghita sat up straight and flicked her dark hair behind her shoulder. “My grandmother—I call her Nani—is cool too. I don’t mind telling you about her. She doesn’t do things with butterflies. She does things with music and snakes. I want to be just like her one day.”

  Yolanda let Ghita talk about her snake-charming Nani and eventually gave up on trying to make the whole volcano green. They each painted a side, one green and one hot orange.

  But from then on, three days a week, on the days Ghita had flute lessons, Yolanda and Sonja waited for Ghita and Hasik instead of taking the bus home. Yolanda and Ghita talked about their mutual love of books and scientific theories. They argued constantly, about all sorts of things, like whether or not time travel was possible and whether the five-second rule was real. Sonja and Hasik, always a little bored by their conversations, usually hung behind and enjoyed the outdoors, until Hasik veered off to his father’s nursery to help out. But it was a few more years before Yolanda finally told Ghita the truth about Wela and the butterflies.

  Eighteen

  THEY walked for what felt like hours. The hot sun finally disappeared from overhead, cooling the darkening grass. Yolanda’s shirt stuck to her back with sweat, and she tried to tuck her unruly curls behind her ears, but her hair was frizzy from walking in the heat and they wouldn’t stay. The front wheel of the wheelbarrow squeaked with each rotation through the bumpy terrain as Wela’s sleeping head lolled back and forth.

  Yolanda stopped and shook out her aching arms. She didn’t think she could go on pushing the wheelbarrow, but she wasn’t going to ask for help. She had to do this on her own. The web of her hands burned, and when she looked closer, there were matching glistening fluid-filled blisters from the wooden handles. She lightly blew on them, soothing the pain.

  “Let me take a turn.” Hasik handed Yolanda the machete and pushed her gently out of the way. Yolanda reluctantly took the machete and walked in front of the wheelbarrow next to Sonja. Her hand cramped as she grasped the machete. It was a relief to not be holding all that weight anymore.

  Yolanda and Sonja sliced a path ahead as Hasik, pushing the wheelbarrow, followed behind. Ghita and Rosalind Franklin were last, both of them looking tired and thirsty. But the group pressed on through the grass.

  Sonja stopped. “We need to set up camp.”

  “Camp?” Ghita stretched her neck in an attempt to look over the grass. “We’ve got to almost be there. We’ve been walking for hours.” Her cheeks were berry-red, her lips cracked.

  “You need water.” Sonja handed her a bottle of water from her backpack. “We haven’t even made it to the casita yet, which is about halfway between the house and the river. Darkness will come fast, and we need to make sure we have everything set up for the night.”

  “We’ve been walking forever!” Ghita cried in anguish. She wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.

  Yolanda’s stomach growled. “Is the casita close?” She hated to stop already. This was taking much longer than she had anticipated.

  “Let me see,” Sonja said. She climbed onto Hasik’s shoulders and looked all the way around, her hand shielding her eyes. “How strange.”

  “What?” Yolanda stood on her tiptoes and tried to see over the grass.

  “It’s as if we have hardly moved at all.”

  “What?” Ghita cried.

  Sonja climbed down from Hasik’s shoulders. “We’ll never make it to the casita tonight. It’s still too far. But we should be much closer to it than we are.” Her eyes darted to Wela sleeping in the wheelbarrow.

  “So we haven’t moved at all?” Ghita threw her hands up. “I knew I should have never—”

  “It’s a strange land … ,” Yolanda whispered, the familiar words on her lips. Did that have something to do with what was taking them so long? If it was, there wasn’t anything they could do about it now. The light was fading fast. A coyote howled in the distance, sending shivers up Yolanda’s spine.

  “Help me cut down the grass,” Yolanda said. They worked together, slicing an open area in the grass around them. The sweet scent of freshly cut grass surrounded them. Sonja unhooked a small roll of fabric from the bottom of her backpack.

  “I didn’t bring a tent, so we’ll have to sleep outside.” Sonja unzipped her backpack.

  “There should be two sleeping pads and two sleeping bags, so we can split it up. But one of us won’t have anything to sleep on.”

  Ghita scowled.

  “I don’t mind sleeping on the grass.” Sonja tossed a sleeping pad to Yolanda.

  “Wela gets both,” Yolanda said as she unrolled the sleeping pad. They placed Wela, who was still asleep, on top of the sleeping pad and zipped her in the sleeping bag, covering her with the serape. The disturbed butterflies drifted up momentarily and then nuzzled back into her hair.

  Yolanda offered Hasik a pad, but he shook his head and flattened out an area of grass. Yolanda rolled a pad out next to Wela, and Rosalind Franklin wiggled between them, snorting
and grunting until she buried herself between their bodies. Ghita took the last sleeping bag.

  “Do we have anything to eat?” Hasik held his hand on his belly. “I hate to ask, but my stomach is aching, I’m so hungry.”

  “I wasn’t planning on feeding so many people, so we don’t have much.” Yolanda dug around in her backpack and pulled out a few tamales, a piece of naan, and a banana. “We’ll have to share. Plus, we need to save something for Wela when she wakes up.”

  She split the items in even portions and handed them out. Had she known the others would be coming along, she would have packed much more food. Rosalind Franklin eagerly crawled into her lap and sniffed at her fingers. Yolanda shared her tamale with her, leaving her own stomach aching with hunger. The food was gone within moments, and their appetites were not satiated.

  “I love sleeping outside.” Sonja stretched and yawned. Ghita rolled her eyes and turned, facing away from everyone else.

  The sky faded darker, from pink to blue to black, and the crickets and cicadas chirped a song through the popping grass. The stars glittered above their heads in the ink-black night as the desert air grew cooler. Hasik and Sonja were soon snoring softly, and Yolanda snuggled close to Wela to keep her warm.

  She forgot how cold the desert was in the nighttime. She couldn’t sleep. Yolanda quietly unzipped her backpack and dug around for the compass in the bottom. In the dim light, she held it flat. The needle spun around and around in a circle, never stopping on north.

  How strange.

  She checked her cell phone. It was almost eight o’clock and her phone was almost out of battery. It wouldn’t last the night, so she turned it off.

  Yolanda rolled over, and the whites of Ghita’s eyes shone in the moonlight as they danced around. She was awake too.

  Yolanda was not going to talk to her, even if they were both awake.

  It was when Welo got sick that Yolanda finally told Ghita about the family trait. It was an ordinary day, as ordinary as it could be. Yolanda and Welo were working side by side in the workshop, giving fresh milkweed to the butterflies. Sonja and Dad were off fishing, and Yolanda felt calm being with Welo. It was her favorite place to be, in his workshop, picking his brain about everything.

  “We learned a little bit about genetics today,” Yolanda said. “We learned brown eyes are dominant and blue eyes are recessive. And I can do this—” Yolanda stuck her tongue out and rolled it like a burrito. “And Sonja can’t. She and I are so different in so many ways. It’s odd we came from the same family at all.”

  Welo laughed. “You two certainly are different, but I think you are more alike than you realize.” He handed Yolanda a thick handful of milkweed and then sat down on a stool. He took off his cowboy hat—his working hat he called it—and pushed his thick white hair back. A curl flopped over his forehead. He looks so tired, Yolanda had thought.

  “What’s wrong?” Yolanda said. “Something’s wrong.”

  Welo glanced at Yolanda with sad eyes and gave her a half smile. “The appointment didn’t go well, mija.”

  “What do you mean? What did they say?” Yolanda carefully placed a branch of milkweed inside the cage and closed the lid.

  “They said—” Welo’s voice caught. He cleared his throat and tried again. “They said I have a tumor, in my brain.”

  Yolanda’s stomach dropped. “W-w-w-what does that mean?” She knew what it meant. She knew exactly what it meant. It explained everything. The headaches. The dizzy spells.

  Cancer.

  Cancer was Welo’s biggest fear. He’d spent his life trying to avoid it. He always ate lots vitamin C and drank the newest type of green tea. If research showed something might have an effect on preventing cancer, Welo bought it and it became part of his routine. He drank green smoothies, did one hundred push-ups a day, and always put on sunscreen. It was who he was.

  But all of that had been for nothing.

  “They said it’s aggressive, and I won’t survive the year.”

  “A year?” The lump in Yolanda’s throat caught her breath. Or more likely less than a year. She had never considered, not really considered her Welo, her abuelo, would ever—die. He was old, but energetic. He still had so much life left in him. What was she going to do without him?

  Yolanda ran into his arms and hugged him tight, forcing herself to swallow the tears threatening to spill over. The pearl snaps on his plaid shirt caught on her hair, but she didn’t care. This was Welo. And Welo was everything. He was the only one who got her. Who understood her. Who she understood.

  Welo pulled back and looked her in the eyes. “Hey, you never know. Maybe they’ll find a cure before it gets me.” He pinched her quivering chin with his calloused thumb and forefinger. “They are making lots of advances every day in cancer research. Maybe something new will turn up.”

  But the shaking in his voice gave away that he was saying it only to make her feel better. And it didn’t. Yolanda nodded, but she couldn’t clear the lump in her throat and the dread building in her heart. He was old, sure, but why couldn’t things just stay the way they were? He was everything to her. How would she go on without him?

  After dinner that night, Yolanda rode her bike to the Patel house and banged on the front door. When Mrs. Patel opened it, Yolanda didn’t even say hello or take off her shoes. She bolted through the door and up to Ghita’s room. When she got there and saw her best friend, the tears finally started to trickle down her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” A look of alarm crossed Ghita’s face, and she put her flute down.

  “It’s Welo. He’s sick,” Yolanda said, her voice shaking. “And I need your help. I’ll do anything—anything—if you’ll promise to help me. I’ll even tell you about Wela and the butterflies. Just promise me you’ll help me find a cure.”

  Ghita got up and took Yolanda’s hands in hers. “Whatever you need me to do, I’ll do,” Ghita had said without a pause. “You’re my best friend.”

  Nineteen

  AFTER she lay there awake for a million hours, listening to the insect songs and the popping grass, the sky began to lighten, and Yolanda was ready to go. During the night, the grass had grown in all around them, enveloping them in a cool, disorienting cave. Yolanda couldn’t tell which way they had come from and which direction they needed to head.

  Sonja and Ghita stirred. Rosalind Franklin pushed her paws against Yolanda, and Hasik yawned loudly. Yolanda leaned over to check on Wela, who was snoring softly. Yolanda drank some water and ate half of a cold tamale. Rosalind Franklin sniffed noisily at her fingers, licking the red sauce off in desperation. Yolanda fed Rosalind Franklin the rest of the tamale and handed Hasik and Sonja each one.

  Sonja split hers in half and gave it to Ghita. Ghita ate it in one bite.

  “Can I have more?” she asked, her mouth full. “I’m so hungry.”

  “No,” Yolanda said, zipping up her backpack. “We need to be careful. I have no idea how long it is going to take us to get to the tree and back. So, no more. Until lunch.” She wished she had brought more food and water. They were working so hard in the heat, and who knew how long it was going to take them to get to the tree.

  Hasik stood and spun in a circle with his arms out. “Which way?” The tall grass towered high over his head and surrounded them on all sides.

  Yolanda climbed onto Hasik’s shoulders as Rosalind Franklin barked and yelped. “Just a minute, girl. I’m checking—” Yolanda spotted the tree first, and Sonja was right; it looked like they hadn’t made much progress getting there. She pointed. “The tree is that way. And the casita is over there.”

  “And your house?” Ghita asked.

  Yolanda looked the other way. All she could see was the grass and the mountain range. The house was not there. “It’s still gone.” She climbed down.

  Rosalind Franklin led the group, strutting ahead, while Sonja and Hasik slashed at the tall grass, making a path for the wheelbarrow. Yolanda pushed the wheelbarrow, her arms sore from all the pu
shing the day before. Wela snored softly, while her white curls danced over the edge of the wheelbarrow with the rhythmic cadence of the squeaking wheel.

  Ghita followed, swiping a stick at the grass. “So … why are we taking your sick Wela to a pecan tree out in the middle of nowhere?”

  “Yeah, what’s the point of all of this?” Sonja glanced back. “The tree? Why are we going there?”

  “Wela said everything will be set right when she gets to the tree,” Yolanda said. “It’s going to make her better.”

  “Is that even possible?” Sonja sliced the machete through the grass.

  “That’s what she said.” Yolanda was not going to lose her. Not like Welo.

  “And you believe her?” Hasik asked.

  “Yes.” Yolanda grunted and pushed the wheelbarrow over a hump on the ground. Of course she believed her. “Wela doesn’t lie.”

  “That’s true.” Sonja pointed her finger matter-of-factly. “No mentiras.”

  Wela’s eyelids fluttered open and she asked for water. Yolanda unscrewed the top of hers and placed it to her lips.

  “Mrs. Rodríguez, why the pecan tree?” Hasik asked. “What’s so special about it?”

  Wela sat up and cleared her throat. “Mijitos, I’m going to tell you a story.”

  Twenty

  DURING the spring of 1943, when I was twelve years old, I lived here with my family. The land has been in my mami’s family—the Rodríguezes—for many, many generations. In 1943, it was a desert, sí, but not like how it is now. My mami; my papá; my sister, Violeta; me; and my brother, Raúl, worked on the orchard, pruning the pecan trees, digging ditches for irrigation, and harvesting the nuts.

  It was a successful, beautiful orchard, with rows of large, lush pecan trees that went as far as the eye could see. One night well after dark, while the lightning bugs flickered on and off, Raúl and I hid on a low branch of my favorite pecan tree.